Mayoral Candidate Sues to End At-Large Elections in Oxnard : Politics: The action proposes a district system so neighborhoods with a concentration of minorities can elect City Council members.

A Latino candidate for mayor of Oxnard has filed a lawsuit against the city that seeks to enhance minority political power by replacing Oxnard’s at-large voting system with single-member districts.

John Soria, a semi-retired administrator whose 1970 lawsuit forced Oxnard to integrate its schools, filed the suit Thursday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. He is among six people vying for the mayor’s post in November.

The suit names as defendants each member of the City Council and the city clerk and alleges that the system of electing council members citywide is a racist practice that should be abolished in Oxnard.

It asks the court to halt any further elections under the at-large system and proposes the formation of separate single-member districts so that neighborhoods with a concentration of minorities can elect their own representatives.

But Gerhard W. Orthuber, a Ventura lawyer who drafted the suit, said he will not ask the court to halt the upcoming November election. He acknowledged that the suit was filed six weeks before the election so that incumbents and challengers will be forced to address the issue.

“A big reason to file it now is to get everyone’s attention,” he said. “It will be hard for people to ignore it.”

In separate interviews, Mayor Nao Takasugi and Councilwoman Dorothy Maron, who are also running for mayor in November, said they do not oppose a single-member district system but believe that voters should decide the matter.

“I think that perhaps it’s about time we put this before the electorate,” Takasugi said.

At a news conference at City Hall, Soria said he hopes that the city will implement the suit’s recommendation rather than challenge it and enter into a lengthy legal battle.

“I don’t think that they want to spend the city’s resources fighting the inevitable,” he said, adding that the city has a tight budget.

Although Soria acknowledged that waging a legal battle with the city would be financially draining, he said, “I think we can raise the money to continue the fight.”

Assistant City Atty. Paula Kimbrell said she has seen a copy of the suit but has not studied the document. She declined to comment on the matter.

Orthuber said the action is similar to the suit involved in the precedent-setting case in Watsonville last year that forced the City Council there to create single-member districts.

“If you look at both complaints, you will find certain likenesses,” he said. “It was well-plagiarized.”

For the suit to be successful, voting-rights lawyers say, it must prove that minority candidates have fared worse in Anglo areas than in Latino areas and that Anglos have traditionally voted solidly against Latino candidates.

The suit also must show that the community can be divided into equal and geographically compact areas with similar interests, the lawyers said.

Soria said Oxnard’s population is about 50% Mexican-American but only three Latinos have been elected to the council since the city was incorporated in 1903.

Soria’s suit is not the first challenge of Oxnard’s at-large system.

A citizens group attempted unsuccessfully last year to gather enough signatures to place a measure on the ballot that would challenge the city’s at-large election system.

In 1988, the City Council came close to placing the same proposal on a referendum ballot but gave up after being discouraged by legal and administrative hurdles.

Voting-rights advocates in Los Angeles and in Ventura County said they have not seen Soria’s suit but support any attempt to improve minority representation in Oxnard.

“I think certainly Oxnard is a city where it would be fair to have district elections,” said Carmen Ramirez, director of the Channel Counties Legal Services Assn. in Oxnard. “It would be a more democratic system.”

Richard Martinez, executive director of the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project in Los Angeles, said: “Any time a community such as Oxnard takes a serious look at the voting rights of the community . . . it is always welcome.”

About 95% of California’s 444 cities with city councils choose their members in at-large elections. About 96% of the state’s 1,208 school boards have their members elected at large.

Martinez said his group and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) have been closely watching the elections in cities and school districts in Ventura County.

He said his group and MALDEF are considering filing lawsuits against several of the at-large voting systems used in the county.

For now, he said, the two organizations are collecting such information as precinct voting records to bolster their chances of a successful legal challenge.

Soria said he worked for MALDEF in 1982 as an educational specialist but decided not to collaborate with the organization because he felt MALDEF is occupied with other legal challenges.

Soria, who with his wife runs a small company that provides printing and accounting services, said that in 1970 he and Orthuber filed a lawsuit that challenged the Oxnard School District’s policy of separating students based on race.

After years of legal maneuvering in Los Angeles federal court, Soria won the suit, and the elementary school district was required to integrate its schools.